In Paradise. Paul Heyse

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СКАЧАТЬ her eyelids when she looks intently at anything; and she looks at the upper row of pictures through a lorgnette. A blonde--and a face, I tell you--and a figure!--just what you call Portament, Jansen--the kind of thing that grows much oftener in Trastevere than among our German oaks."

      "And why don't you give me credit, too, for enough taste to do this lady justice?" asked Felix.

      "Because--well, because you are a trifle young, and--thus far at least--you are not an artist. This beauty of mine is far from being conspicuous or attracting attention--like everything really great. I will wager, Baron, that you find my enthusiasm exaggerated. These polished checks and temples, and the poise of the head on the neck and the neck on the shoulders, and the whole figure--neither too full nor too slender--but hush! I believe she is standing over there at this moment! Yes, it is she--the one in the raw silk, with the broad, somewhat antiquated straw-hat set back upon her head--doesn't it look almost like a halo? Well, Jansen? Do say something! Generally you are so extraordinarily prompt in picking flaws in my ideals."

      Jansen had paused, and had coolly turned his quiet, clear gaze upon the lady, who stood, entirely unsuspicious of scrutiny, a few alcoves away from them, and turned her full face toward the observing party. Angelica had not said too much. Her figure was of rare grace and majesty, as her light summer-dress showed its beautiful outlines clearly against the dark background; her head, thrown back a little, hardly moved upon the slender, graceful neck, and her hat allowed its form to be all the more distinctly seen, as she wore her soft, light hair simply parted, and falling in a few curls upon her shoulders. Her face was not striking at first glance; quiet, steel-gray eyes, concealing their brilliancy behind the slightly closed lids; a mouth not exactly full or rosy, but of the most beautiful form and full of character; and a chin and neck worthy of an antique statue. She seemed so completely absorbed in the study of the gallery that she did not look up as the friends approached her. It was only when they entered the alcove, and Angelica began to express her wild admiration (quite secretly, she imagined, but really loud enough to be plainly audible), that the stranger suddenly noticed them. With a slight blush, she drew about her shoulders the white shawl that had hung carelessly about her waist--as though to shield her from these curious eyes--cast an annoyed glance at the whispering painter, and left the alcove.

      "See how she moves--a queenly walk!" cried Angelica, looking after her. "But alas! I have driven her away. I like that in her, too, that she is too refined to let herself be stared at. Quant' è bella! But do say something, Jansen! Have you suddenly turned into a statue, or has the enchantment worked too strongly?"

      "You may be right, Angelica," said the sculptor, smiling. "I have met this kind of phenomenal being here now and then; and, as they were always strangers (for you never see a native of Munich in the Pinakothek), looking at them was always but a fleeting joy, and I could only gaze after them as they went. So now I have grown cautious. You know 'a burnt child--'"

      "Nonsense!" exclaimed the artist. "This divine being may be a stranger, of course, but no one studies the pictures so closely who is looking at them for the first and last time, only to carry out the instructions of her Baedeker. What's to prevent our watching her again? And, even if I lose all to-morrow forenoon over it, and let my group of children dry into the canvas, I must study this exquisite creature once more, and at leisure. There--there she is again! Rosebud is just passing her, and starts back as if he had met the Bella di Tiziano in person! See how he stares after her! He has taste, after all, in spite of his old Swedes."

      And now the little battle-painter came hurrying up to his friends, and began to tell them what a discovery he had made. Angelica laughed.

      "You come too late, Herr von Rosebud! I am the one to whom belongs the fame of having discovered this comet! But do you know what I have in mind, gentlemen? As none of you seem to be inclined to follow up this adventure, I, as the least suspicious of us four, will take it upon myself to pursue our beauty, and see if I can discover where she lives and who she is. If she stays here but a week, she shall be painted. I have sworn it! And whichever of you is particularly good shall come to the last sitting; and Herr Rosebud hereby receives permission to play her a serenade under my window. Addio, signori! To-morrow you shall hear how the matter turns out."

      She nodded hurriedly to the friends, and followed the stranger, who had in the mean time passed through the rooms, and was now preparing to leave the gallery.

      "I'll wager she does it!" said Rosenbusch. "An astoundingly resolute woman that, and absolutely not to be stopped when an enthusiasm seizes her! This time she really has made a devilish remarkable discovery; but you know what wonderful beauties she has tried to talk up to us before--eh, Jansen? She has a positive mania for admiration, and, when she is possessed by it, she is not very fastidious in her choice of subjects. 'The sea rages, and will have its sacrifice!'"

      The sculptor did not answer. He strolled along beside the others for a while, silent and abstracted. Then he suddenly said: "Let us go! It seems as though the art-sense had suddenly disappeared or died out in me. Such a perfect piece of living Nature puts to shame all illusions of color, so that even the great masters seem like bunglers beside it."

CHAPTER VI.

       Table of Contents

      Meanwhile the beautiful unknown had slowly descended the steps of the Pinakothek, and turned in the direction of the Obelisk, clearly unconscious of the fact that twenty paces behind her an enthusiastic artist was upon her track, never losing sight of her for an instant.

      And, indeed, it was a rare refreshment to the eye to look upon this beautiful figure as it passed along. If one may talk of a "silent music of form," here everything was legato, while the little artist was in a perpetual staccato movement. The stranger moved as though she stepped on an elastic ground, and seemed not to mind the walk in the least, in spite of the oppressive mid-day heat. She looked neither to the right nor left; in her hands, on which she wore half-gloves of black net, she held a large green fan, which she opened now and then to protect her face against the sun.

      Her worshiper grew more enthusiastic with every moment, and gave utterance to her feelings in muttered monologue, sprinkled, according to her fashion, with Italian interjections.

      At length she saw the subject of her admiration turn to the left, and go into a neat house on the Briennerstrasse. Here, she knew, there were furnished rooms to let; so the stranger must have arranged for a considerable stay in Munich. But how to get at her? To ring at every bell in the two stories, and ask if a beautiful woman in yellow silk lived there, did not seem very practicable. And did she live here, after all? Might she not be only making a visit?

      The painter was just debating whether she should walk up and down before the house like a sentry, when a window opened in the corner-room on the ground-floor, before which lay a little garden with its tall shrubs looking dry and dusty in the mid-day sun, and the beauty leaned out to shut the blind. She had taken off her hat, and her hair was a little disordered, which wonderfully added to her beauty. Without hesitating a moment, Angelica marched through the little path past the garden, and entered the vestibule.

      Her ring was answered by a very old servant with a white, soldierly-looking mustache, and dressed in a long, silver-buttoned livery-coat that reached to his knees. He eyed the visitor suspiciously, took her card, on which there was nothing but "Minna Engelken," and came back at once, indicating by a silent nod that his mistress would receive her.

      As Angelica entered the stranger was standing in the middle of the room, in the midst of the warm, greenish light that came through the closed blinds. She had hastily put up her hair again, but without special care; and now she greeted her visitor somewhat coldly, with a scarcely perceptible nod of her exquisite head.

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